Fruit of the Golden Vine (13 page)

Silvana opened the door to her bedroom. A letter lay on her pillow. She had expected to see it, yet the sight still set her pulse quickening. She closed the door and swept the note into her hands.

The timepiece above the door indicated that the time had moved little, it being still only ten thirty of the clock. Silvana lit the lantern beside her bed, adding some warmth to the moonlit glow, and sat at the foot of her bed. How to idle away the time?

Reminiscing, perhaps…

When Silvana had been a little girl, an old woman—some spiritual matriarch—had often dragged her off to the woods and forced her to sit on a stump with her eyes closed. Time had crawled on those wretched stumps with nothing but the crone’s religious babbling for company.
Old roots wend deep. The great flame purifies. The blood will call.
They’d forced her into curious robes and headpieces, given her sticks to hold and drawn on her face in ash. Silvana wandered amid the memories, reliving each one. God above and Goddess within.

Silvana touched her chest.
Goddess within.
It was about the only thing worth keeping from that litany of nonsense. She checked the clock again. Eleven. Had she really been musing that long? She focused on her breathing, as the old woman had taught her, and let time pass without her.

Finally the clock’s hands arrived at five to midnight. Silvana moved as silently as she could through the hallways, crept into the lobby and tried the handle of the front door. It was unlocked, which suggested that Adelina had already passed by.

The moon guided Silvana down the garden path and through the swinging gates. A dense droning hovered about her, the muttering of sleepless insects, and an owl cried somewhere above. The fountain continued its musical pattering, an appropriately ethereal accompaniment as she strolled between trees dipped in lunar tones.

As she’d anticipated, Adelina sat beneath the tree that they’d stopped by the morning before. Had it really been only a day since?

“Silvana.” Adelina raised her face, and starlight illuminated her rounded features. “As you wished, only the moon is here as our witness.”

“Adelina.” Silvana moved close to Adelina and took both of her hands. Her fingers were warm despite the touch of chill in the night. “Your poem was exquisite.”

Adelina stood, still holding Silvana’s hands. “A breath shared between like souls, my love.”

Silvana smiled as she gazed into Adelina’s luminous eyes. “You have a knack for this. One would think you’d spent your entire life studying the arts of romance.”

“When I set my mind to something, not even God can stand in my way.” Adelina freed a hand and held it to Silvana’s decorated cheek. “I want our hearts to be as one.”

A gentle warmth moved through Silvana’s body. She clutched Adelina’s hand and kissed its palm. Adelina reddened, and her shoulders began to rise more quickly with her hurrying breath.

“Though I adore your romantic mode, Adelina, I’ve also become fond of the more plainly-spoken Ada. May I speak with her too?”

Adelina laughed. “Of course you can. I’m enjoying myself, that’s all.”

“I can’t believe how audacious you were with that poem. Your mother gave me the oddest look afterwards.”

“Did she?” Adelina bit her lower lip. “Well, she can hardly prove anything. It was a very religious poem, after all.”

“Yes, quite pious.” It was odd—Adelina was a delight to look upon, womanhood wrapped in moonlight, yet Silvana felt an apprehensive thrill rather than an urgent lust. She wanted to savor what was growing between them, to allow it to ripen on the vine, so that the taste of it would be all the sweeter. “Return to seducing me with your honeyed tongue. You must have brought me here for a romantic reason.”

“Indeed I did.” Adelina took a package from her bodice and unwrapped it. “I’ve a gift for you.” Two silver rings gleamed in her hand. She raised one to catch the light. Its signet bore a silver tree threaded with small sapphires. “You came to me from the wilds, a dryad of arboreal beauty. My heart gave way to the passion in your eyes and the sensuality in your voice. Wear this symbol of nature and kiss it each morning, thinking of me.”

Silvana extended her index finger, and Adelina slid the ring into place. She lifted the second ring to the moonlight. “And for me…”

“Let me.” Silvana took the second ring and inspected it. A silver star with glittering blue points. Silvana looked into Adelina’s eyes, more beautiful still than the sapphires, and touched her fingers to Adelina’s cheek.

“Like a star fallen from the firmament, you are as pure as you are fervent, a mystery not of this world. You have cast your celestial light upon me, Adelina, and at its touch my soul is laid bare.” Silvana guided the ring onto Adelina’s waiting finger. “Wear this empyrean symbol and kiss it each morning, thinking of me.”

With a trembling hand, Adelina cupped Silvana’s cheek. “You are the daughter of earth, I the daughter of heaven, and like heaven and earth, we were meant to kiss.”

She leaned forward, her eyes closing as her mouth opened. Their lips met. Silvana returned the kiss, pulling Adelina closer. Their tongues grazed together, and Silvana’s thoughts scattered. Nothing mattered now but their heated, tender union and the turmoil of her soul.

As their lips separated, Silvana inhaled what felt like her life’s first breath. She stroked her fingertip along the curve of Adelina’s neck. “That was a surprise. I fully expected that I would be the one to kiss you.”

Adelina giggled. Her cheeks burned, and a wild light danced behind her lashes. “I suppose you thought that I’d never kissed anyone before.”

“As a matter of fact, I did. That was no first-time kiss. Where did you…”

“Ira’s best friend. She stays each spring for about a week. We don’t much like each other, as far as being friends goes. She’s two years my elder and tremendously snobbish.” Adelina ran her tongue across her lips. “But she certainly likes kissing me. Every time we have the chance, we hide in the gardens and kiss for as long as we dare. We caress each other, too, but we don’t dare do anything more.”

The surprises never ended. “And that’s all you’ve done? Kissing?”

“That’s all. Well, I loosened her bodice once and touched her breast.” Adelina blushed. “And then the gardener came shuffling along, and I had to pretend like a spider had crawled down her dress and we were chasing it out. He was mortified. He’s about three hundred years old.”

“So you’re still a virgin.” Silvana lowered her eyes to Adelina’s concealed bosom. All this talk of loosened bodices was turning her mind in a lewd direction. “Untutored in the art of pleasuring a woman.”

“Maybe so, but I’m a very quick student, Silvana. Everyone says so.”

Conscious of the lust kindling within her, Silvana took a deep, careful breath. Time to end their romantic night before she broke its spell. “I think we ought retire and dream of one another. I’ll wear this ring always, and between each heartbeat I shall long for the company of the woman who wears its counterpart.”

“Oh, that’s not bad. I wish I’d said that.”

Silvana laughed and, with her fingertip, traced the soft contours of Adelina’s lips. “Goodnight, Ada, my love.”

Adelina kissed the roaming fingertip. “I anticipate a long, restless night. I’ll occupy it with thoughts of you.”

“Just remember, a chaste thought is a thought wasted.”

“There’ll be nothing chaste in my mind tonight, I can assure you.” Adelina gestured in farewell. “Off you go, then, you temptress. Leave me to smolder.”

Silvana bowed, turned and retraced her path through the garden. Walking beneath a procession of thin branches, she peered up at the moon, which presided in judgment over the sleeping world. It seemed to her as if it looked back in complicity, and she knew that fortune was with them.

With oiled silence, the door to Adelina and Irena’s bedroom opened. Adelina took several stealthy steps into the room. “Ada?” Irena was awake, wide-eyed and upright, and Adelina’s stomach twisted. “Where did you go?”

“I just went to the privy.”

“But you’ve been gone forever. And you’re shaking!” Irena beckoned, and Adelina trudged across the carpet to stand beside Irena’s bed. “You’re fluttering like a leaf in the breeze. I don’t believe you went to the privy at all.”

“Privies can be frightening things.”

Irena patted the bed. Adelina sat, smoothing her skirts. “Where did you go? Tell me truly, Ada, for I saw you leave. I was lying in bed, not able to sleep for thinking about…well, for thinking, and I saw you creep out the door. Nobody creeps to the privy.”

“Do you promise not to tell anyone?”

“Not a soul.” A sudden smile illuminated Irena’s face. “It’ll be a secret between sisters.”

“I went to give Silvana her gift.”

“In the middle of the night? So you went to her room?”

“No, Ira. I met her in the gardens.”

“The gardens! No wonder your hand is so cool. But why the gardens?”

Adelina took an unsteady breath that hardly seemed to reach her lungs. There was nothing to tell now but the truth. “Because we’re courting. Just like you and Rafael, but we’re doing it in secret. And it’s beautiful and romantic, and I’ve never been so happy in my life.”

Crimson spread across Irena’s face. “Courting?”

“It’s almost like I’m two women. There’s me now, breathless and trembling, and there’s some other Adelina who steps forward when I need her, the one who speaks the poetry I keep locked in my heart. With my words alone, I’ve gotten Silvana to fall in love with me, and she’s promised to wear my ring.” Adelina held out her hand. “Look, this one has a star. Hers has a tree.”

“It’s lovely.” Irena touched the outline of the silver star. “But wouldn’t it have been more romantic if you wore the tree? If it’s meant to symbolize her.”

“Oh, I didn’t think of—” Adelina scowled. “No, it works both ways. Don’t make me regret anything. It was like something out of a dream. We even kissed.”

“You kissed her?” Irena’s eyes grew huge, and her mouth formed a startled circle.

“A romantic kiss. On the lips. I felt her teeth, her tongue. Her body was pressed against mine.” Adelina’s face and neck prickled. “Please don’t hate me. I can’t help it. I covet women the way you covet men. I swoon over a maiden’s breast the way you swoon over a pair of shoulders. I crave a feminine touch, a silken strand of hair against my cheek, a soft and gentle pair of lips…” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I’m so scared of what Mother will do if she finds out.”

“She’d send Rafael and Silvana away.” Irena squeezed Adelina’s hand. “Neither of us want that, do we?”

Adelina shook her head. Her stomach roiled, and she fought a dizzying need to lie down. “Please tell me you understand what I’ve just confessed to you.”

“You love Silvana the way I love Rafael. I understand.” Irena put an arm around Adelina and drew her closer. “I didn’t know such things were possible, but it explains why you seemed so giddy at the market today.”

Another tear followed the first, and Adelina rubbed her cheek. “Do you hate me? Are you going to tell Mother?”

As Irena smiled, a tender light touched her eyes. “Don’t be silly, Ada. We’ll go on courting them both, and we can gossip and giggle over our lovesickness, just as sisters should.”

Adelina stared at Irena until her sister disappeared behind a wavering curtain of tears. A sob convulsed Adelina’s chest, and she clutched Irena close, buried her head in the curve of Irena’s neck and wept. Irena stroked Adelina’s hair and murmured indistinct consolations.

“I love you,” said Adelina between heavy sobs. “I’m so sorry I’ve been so awful to you.”

“You haven’t been awful at all. We’ve always had our good times and our fractious ones.”

“It just feels like I’ve always been awful. Especially as you’ve never been anything but gentle with me.”

“You’re my grumpy little sister. I expect it from you, Ada. It’s because you’re so clever that you say such pointed things.”

“But I’m such a hypocrite!” Adelina blinked until her vision cleared. “I teased you for being so sappy about love, but secretly I craved that sentimentality too. Just not with a man. If you could hear the things I’ve said to her…”

“Only feebleminded people care about romance.” Irena grinned. “Isn’t that right?”

Adelina sighed and wiped her cheeks dry. “Well, it is silly. Courtship’s just a game of throwing yourself into a reckless love with someone you don’t know, continually striving for artful ways to boast of your adoration. And at play’s end, regardless of how well you performed, it’s still your parents who decide whether you get to spend the rest of your life in marital banality.”

Irena giggled. “Only you could be lovesick and cynical at the same time.”

“It’s foolish, but it’s also exhilarating. Especially for me, courting a love that everyone is too timid to speak of. We don’t have chaperones, we don’t pretend to virtue. Men invented the ideas of chastity and wedlock purely to deprive women of carnal pleasures—they don’t obey those rules themselves, you know.”

Irena flushed to her ears. “Ada! What are you saying?”

“That I intend to know her.”

“God!” Irena covered her mouth. “Can that even be done?”

“Of course it can. She’s promised to teach me.”

“But it’s shocking. You won’t be a virgin any longer if you do. Well, I don’t think you would be.” Irena gnawed on a fingernail. “You’d be sent to a convent. I know romance is thrilling, but don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“My only cause for regret would be if I never experienced that intimacy with her.”

“You’re so much bolder than me. I’d never dare do anything like that.” Irena lowered her scarlet face. “Well, I’m sure whatever you do, God will understand.”

“I don’t believe—” Adelina caught herself. She’d already given Irena enough scandal for one night. “I don’t believe that what we’re doing is wrong.”

Irena twirled a lock of her hair. “Will you help me write a love poem for Rafael tomorrow? I can never think of the words.”